Where To Start

First answer, towas I fishing too fast? Maybe, maybe not. Most likely, you were anticipating and setting the hook before you felt the weight of the fish. Also, if you find you are missing quite a few fish on tops, when the fish hits stop completely for three or four seconds and then one slow twitch. The second slow twitch will usually elicit a response. However, I am not so sure how this will work drifting, even with two wind socks, in thirty mile an hour PM breezes. Good Luck. Also, keep a rod rigged with a Catch or soft plastic nearby. If you can not get the fish to come back up on a topwater, through in a suspending bait and see what happens. You can usually score on the second shot.

The afternoon bite? Make sure you are working accordingly. The fish are either moving up into shallower, warmer water. Or with the idiots that burn our shorelines, moving out into deeper calmer water. I have found lately, minding the traffic, there is a definite boat traffic pattern on the west shoreline. You have the shalow water morons and airboats that think they need to run from 20 yards inland to the shoreline, then you have the guys that run the 150 yard barrier to the shore. Split the difference and fish in there…I am finding fish there. Its about mid stomach to chest deep.

Other than that, look for out of the way places and change your retreives and hook sets. Wait to feel the weight before diggin the hook set.

Hope this helps some.

Dad and I are adding a Tips and Tackle Section to the forum as soon as I get time in the next life.